After the Employment Equality (Repeal of Retirement Age Provisions) Regulations it is now no longer legally possible for employers to retire their employees automatically when they reach the age of 65....
George Osbourne announced today at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester that the qualifying service for unfair dismissal will increase from one year to two years. This change will take effect in April 2012. While many employers may welcome this change others have suggested that claimants will bring more disrcimination claims in the Employment Tribunal if they cannot bring unfair...
Currently claimants can start claims in the Employment Tribunal without paying any fee, however fees are common in the court system. The Chancellor announced at the Conservative Party Conference that from April 2013 the following fees will be introduced in the Employment Tribunal System and claimsnts will have to pay; £250 when applying to a tribunal and a further £1000...
Man City Footballer, Carlos Tevez, seemingly refused to play as a substitute in a match on 27 September 2011. His boss, Roberto Mancini, reacted by saying: "If we want to improve as a team, Carlos can`t play with us. With me, he is finished." Would Mancini have grounds to dismiss Tevez? Playing football for Man City will be the main obligation Tevez should fulfil under his contract o...
Jackson v Liverpool City Council Mr Jackson left the Council`s employment in 2007 to take up a position in Sefton Borough Council`s adult services department. In 2008, Mr Jackson applied for a position in the child services department within Sefton Council. As this role was dependant on satisfactory references, Mr Jackson approached Ms Griffiths of Liverpool City Council. Owing to certain concerns that had arisen after Mr Jackson had left employment, specifically in connection with his recordkeeping, Ms Griffiths explained she was unable to confirm or deny whether she would employ Mr Jackson again. Her rationale for this indecisive response was because the allegations against Mr Jackson had not been investigated formally. Mr Jackson was unsuccessful in his application and he therefore decided to pursue a claim for damages in the County Court....
Despite its red tape review stating that the increase in the qualifying period of employment need to bring a claim of unfair dismissal in the Tribunal would be increased to 2 years, the Government has announced that the increased is not yet definite. The review paper stated "We are increasing the qualifying period for employees to be able to bring a claim for unfair dismissal from one to two year...
The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 come into force tomorrow. Further details of this legislation can be found in Buddy`s recent news article Agency Workers The Countdown Begins and Agency Workers Regulations AuditQuestionnaire for Agency, Information for Agency on 12 week entitlements and Agency Workers Day 1 entitlements checklist. Don`t forget that the 2011 National Minimum Wage (NMW) rates also come into effect tomorrow:...
The Government has published proposals to deregulate business....
It has been reported in the Metro that an 18 year old pot washer was dismissed days after informing her employer that they would have to increase her hourly rate from £4 to £4.92 after she turned 18. The employee brought and won a claim for age discrimination in the employment tribunal. Some employers mistakenly believe that they can treat young workers, particularly those just...
Under the Equality Act 2010, where an employee is placed at a disadvantage by an employer`s policy, criterion or practice, the employer is under a duty to take reasonable steps to avoid the disadvantage....
A BT telesales worker earning £20,000 p.a., who left her job after several incidents of alleged bullying, has been awarded a record £290,000 payout from BT after her complaints of sex discrimination and unfair dismissal were upheld. This sum represents the highest Employment Tribunal payout in the past year and included damages for personal injury, loss of potential future earnings and injury to feelings. The Tribunal found that the line manager responsible for the harassment had displayed a bullying management style and had used "obscene, homophobic and racist language."...
In the case of Williams and others v British Airways plc (Case C-155/10 ECJ), the ECJ has held that airline pilots’ paid annual leave must include supplementary flying payments. The case was referred to the ECJ by the Supreme Court. In this case, the pilots’ holiday pay was made up of their basic salary but did not include flying supplements to which they were entitled as part...
A recent ECJ case (Prigge and ors v Deutsche Lufthansa AG), on appeal from the German Federal Labour Court, has held that a compulsory retirement age of 60 for Lufthansa airline pilots (set out in a collective agreement) was unlawful. The ECJ concluded that this provision was a "disproportionate requirement" that went against International and German national measures whereby the mandatory retirement age for pilots is 65....
This is the question posed by the recent EAT case of Perry v Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. In this case the employee worked for two different NHS Trusts in different roles. She fell ill and, due to mobility prioblems, was signed off sick by Imperial. She was well enough to continue with her other job and did so. Imperial found out, felt she had&nbs...
It was reported in this week’s Grazia magazine that a new cause of action in employment law is taking off in the United States, “Personal Appearance Discrimination”. A number of US States and districts (for example the District of Columbia and Santa Cruz, California) now protect personal appearance in the same way they protect racism, and sexual harassment. The definition of pe...
The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011 came into force on 10 September 2011. The Regulations set out the specific public sector equality duties that certain public bodies must comply with. The aim of the specific duties is to help public bodies comply with the general duty to promote equality in the workplace which has been in force since 5 April 2011. The first spe...
As has been recently well publicised, the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (due to come into force next month), will provide agency workers with the same rights as employees with respect to pay and benefits after a 12 week qualifying period (i.e. a 12 week period working in the same role). Specifically, provisions with respect to: basic pay, overtime, individual performance related bonu...
Employers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to mitigate the impact a provision, criterion or practice has on a disabled employee....
Under the Working Time Regulations a worker is entitled to a daily rest break if their daily working time exceeds six hours....
The Equal Pay Act (now the Equality Act) was introduced to ensure that men and a women performing equal work would receive the same pay, unless the difference could be shown to be because of a material factor other than sex. However a recent case has shown that a successful claim may result in the woman receiving more pay than her comparator. A woman can pursue an equal pay claim wher...